


two birds

by enamuko



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/enamuko
Summary: If he had but two lives to give... OR: Hubert and Byleth stumble through the mortifying ordeal of having feelings.





	two birds

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a canon-compliant extension of romancing Hubert. It sort of evolved into its own creature from there but in the end it retains the original heart of the idea. Enjoy.

“You know, Hubie, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Hubert sighed, slid the silk bookmark into place, and turned to face his classmate with his hands folded in his lap.

“And what, pray tell, did you not think I had in me, Dorothea?”

Something he had learned already in his time being acquainted with the songstress was that ignoring her simply did not work. Dorothea could be quite insistent when she wanted to be (he supposed you would have to be, in her position) and what might otherwise be a mildly unpleasant but blissfully short conversation could turn into…

Well, a living Hell, for lack of a better term.

Dorothea cast her eyes about in search of a second chair and, finding nothing, chose instead to hoist herself up and sit on the edge of the desk.

“I doubt the Academy would appreciate you finding such…  _ Creative _ uses for their furniture,” he said, more out of habit and expectation than actual concern. How Dorothea conducted herself was of no concern to him.

“Relax, Hubie.” Dorothea smoothed out her skirt and adjusted it to maintain her modesty. “It’s just us here. I made  _ very _ sure of that.”

The last part she leaned in towards him and whispered conspiratorily, giving him a wink as though he was supposed to be in on some sort of secret or scheme with her.

“I would take care, Dorothea. People may get… The  _ wrong idea _ if you were to go around saying such things.”

Of course, he might have been one of the few people Dorothea had never tried to exert her wiles over. Had she tried, he might have written her off as just another vapid commoner, searching for a way into a life of leisure at the hands of some second-rate noble who cared more for beauty than good sense.

Instead, he thought her rather shrewd, a calculating woman with a strong sense of purpose, the sort of woman who would no doubt elevate whatever minor household she found her way into, regardless of the circumstances of her birth. She was, he imagined, exactly the sort of person Lady Edelgard was speaking of when she spoke of her great vision of a world where rank was decided by talent and skill, rather than blood. 

Not that he would ever say so to her face, since she would never let him hear the end of it, as though it were completely proposterous for him to hand out compliments to people other than Lady Edelgard. It was— perhaps  _ not common _ , but not completely unrealistic. Dorothea would tease it for him nonetheless, and he would rather avoid that.

Absolutely none of that would help him to avoid the no doubt unpleasant thing that had Dorothea’s eyes gleaming like a beast who had cornered their prey, though.

“To answer your  _ earlier _ question,” Dorothea said, swinging her legs and utterly ignoring his mild admonishment for the weak attempt at distraction that it was. Not that he’d been trying, mind. “Imagine my surprise to see you  _ expressing an interest _ in someone other than our dear Edie. If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes I would have said someone was pulling a prank on me.”

Hubert sighed from somewhere deep in his chest.

“What nonsense have you settled on this time?” Part of him was  _ genuinely _ curious. The last time they’d had a conversation where Dorothea talked to him with That tone of voice and That look in her eye, it had been about how quite certain she was that Hubert’s dedication was born out of romantic feelings for Lady Edelgard. She was certainly not the first person to suggest such a thing, but she was the first that felt comfortable enough with him to take it to quite the extent that she had…

Dorothea  _ had _ been a diva before she had come to Garreg Mach, after all. He supposed that required a certain level of dramatics. And at this point, he had decided it was far easier to find some level of enioyment in her absurdity than to fight against it…

“Oh, don’t play dumb, Hubie.” She rolled her shoulders back and forth in a way that he was quite certain most men would find alluring. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“Be that as it may, I really have no idea what you might be referring to.”

“To the  _ professor _ , silly!” Dorothea scoffed at him, annoyed. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be  _ that _ surprised. She  _ is _ pretty popular with almost every student in the school, after all. Even you can’t be completely immune to someone that charming…”

“Does all of this have a point that you’re trying to get to, Dorothea? I would much rather you come out and say it so I can get back to what I was doing.”

“I’m talking about your crush on Professor Byleth, Hubie.”

Had he been enjoying a cup of tea at that moment, he likely would have choked on it.

“ _ Excuse _ me?”

His voice got low and dark, and he glowered at Dorothea with a venom he usually only reserved for people who were irritating Lady Edelgard, but she just giggled at him behind her hand.

“It’s so cute when you think you can scare me like that,” she said with an almost wistful sigh. “Unfortunately for you, I know that you’re actually a big, soft teddy bear under all of that intimidation and threats of murder.”

“I have no idea what to be more offended about. And there are a  _ number _ of contestants at the moment.”

It had been one thing when Dorothea had been so adamant about his being in love with Lady Edelgard. His feelings for her were obviously far more complicated than simply romantic devotion, but at least it as an understandable enough mistake to make. He could  _ see _ the logic behind it, however misguided.

But  _ this _ ? This was most certainly crossing the line.

“Oh? I guess a student having a romantic tryst with a professor  _ is _ pretty scandalous, but you didn’t strike me as the type to really care about that sort of thing.”

“It’s true that I care very little about gossip or rumours concerning me… Unless, of course, they would reflect poorly on Lady Edelgard.” Most of the rumours bandied about were of a much more sinister nature than Dorothea’s playful teasing… And yet this one sat much worse with him than accusations of brutality or wickedness. “What I do care about is the fact that someone I would consider an otherwise… Adequately intelligent person would have the gall to say something like that to my face.”

“There’s no need to be  _ shy _ , Hubie,” she said, as though that so-called ‘affectionate’ nickname would endear him to her any more. “It’s just us here, after all. Like I said, I made sure of it.”

“Discretion is not my concern. I’m much more interested in how you came up with this complete fabrication.”

Dorothea was, annoyingly, quite immune to his venemous glares, and always had been. But something about his tone of voice or even just his words evidently took her by surprise, because she raised a hand to her chest as her eyes widened, leaning back to look at him with an almost theatrical expression.

“Are you calling me a liar, Hubert? Or stupid, maybe?” She frowned at him, and that frown quickly turned into a harsh glare. The lack of a nickname was… Troublesome. He’d rarely had cause to see Dorothea angry, but he was more than aware of how  _ capable _ she was…

Then, the look on her face suddenly softened, and that glint in her eye returned.

“Or… Could it be that you haven’t even  _ realized _ yet?”

“There’s nothing for me  _ to  _ ‘realize’, Dorothea. Now, I would like to get back to my work, if you’d be so kind as to stop sitting on my desk.”

He was most certainly tired of this; he’d started out trying to find at least a sense of smug amusement in her ridiculousness, but now it was just tiring, when he had other important things that needed to be done.

“Alright then.” Dorothea put her hands on her hips and stayed quite firmly where she was. “I’ll leave… As soon as you give me a good explanation for why you’ve been spending so much time around the professor, watching her all the time…”

“Simple,” he said, waving his hand like he was trying to shoo off a particularly annoying insect. “Lady Edelgard and our professor have become quite…  _ Close _ since she arrived at the monastery, and as Lady Edelgard’s devoted servant it is my duty to ensure her safety. The professor poses a risk to not only her health, given her close proximity, but also potentially to her ambitions. Therefore, I must investigate her to make sure she does  _ not _ pose a threat to Lady Edelgard, and if she does, how best to…  _ Take care _ of the situation. Does that satisfy your curiosity.”

Dorothea sighed and shook her head. “Hubie, I really don’t know what to do with you sometimes,” she said, but slipped off his desk all the same, which was all that mattered to him. “But oh well. I suppose either you’ll figure it out eventually, or you won’t. I’ll be rooting for you!”

She stopped in the doorway and blew him a kiss with an accompanying wink, and if he didn’t know better, he would have thought she was trying to prove him wrong about being smart enough not to try to flirt with him…

But he  _ did _ know better, and the alternative, it turned out, was far worse.

Hubert sighed as he turned back to his book, determined not to let Dorothea’s interference hinder his work any more than it already had. He had far too much to do to allow himself to be distracted by something as ridiculous as Dorothea’s pet theories…

Particularly when they concerned the  _ Professor _ , of all people.

Hubert was not the sort to care about gossip, at least regarding himself. Gossip had its uses, of course— even unreliable information had to have some sort of source, some reason for existing— and he always kept an ear to the ground for any unflattering words being passed around about Lady Edelgard, but on the whole he found it a pointless waste of time and ignored it.

His opinion remained unchanged, but a curious thing happened; after Dorothea’s ridiculous visit, whether he liked it or not, he started to  _ take notice _ .

The first time, it was a trio of girls from the Blue Lions; no one he recognized, just a gaggle of the same faceless students he passed dozens of every day. They were standing outside of their own classroom when he caught Professor Byleth before she could leave, sweeping off to do whatever she did in her spare time (fish, mostly, or visit her father, or grade papers silently in her room; he had quite  _ thoroughly _ made sure that she was doing nothing untoward or suspect outside of class hours, and was almost disappointed to discover how appallingly  _ normal _ her after school activities were).

“Professor.” He’d come up behind her silently, sweeping in like a shadow in a way that would have certainly made anyone else jump. It had almost frustrated him when she had simply turned to him as though she had known he was there all along. Finding her weaknesses had proven from the very beginning to be quite difficult. “I have a question about today’s lecture…”

The question had been genuine; though he did not trust her, she  _ was _ his teacher, after all. And it had been while she was going over the lecture material with him, in her brusque and to-the-point way, that he heard the three of them giggling. He had ignored them at first, until he had heard one of them refer to the Professor…

When he had looked over, glaring at them for being disruptive, the one who was in the middle of speaking turned a brilliant shade of red and quickly shoved her friends away.

Of course, he would have never even thought twice about the incident if it had been isolated.

The second time, he at least had a name to put to the idiocy, and an unsurprising one at that; he walked into the dining hall in search of the Professor and found her sitting and attempting to eat her lunch while Sylvain Gautier, the skirt chaser of the Blue Lions, ignored his own food in favour of attempting (and failing) to flirt with her.

His first instinct had been to simply walk away and seek her out at a later time, as what he had to speak with her about was nothing that could not wait; he wouldn’t have even seen a need to interrupt for chivalrous reasons had he been that sort of person (which he most certainly was not, at least not when it came to most people) because he was well aware that Byleth could handle herself, and seemed more amused at Sylvain’s antics than upset or uncomfortable, particularly as she ignored him in favour of her food…

And yet he had found himself at her table regardless. It was far too much of an inconvenience for him to return later when his question was such a simple one, and whatever conversation she was absorbed in was so  _ clearly _ unimportant…

“Professor,” he said smoothly as he approached her table, once again silently and without warning, and still she did nothing more than look up and nod to acknowledge his presence; Sylvain, on the other hand, was gratifyingly startled and nearly knocked over his entire plate when he jumped. Hubert ignored him completely, but it was certainly a much more satisfying reaction… “I  _ do _ hope I’m not interrupting anything important?”

“Did you need something, Hubert?” From anyone else, it might have sounded irritated at the interruption, or brusque at best, but her completely bland expression and barely inflected tone gave the impression of it instead just being… The way she spoke. Which he certainly couldn’t refute. One of the few absolute positives he could attribute to the professor was her ability to get directly to the point…

“Our meeting this afternoon,” he said, referring to their regular sessions in which Hubert would go to her under the guise of asking for help with school work or to air concerns about his classmates when he in reality was gathering information about her, and she would politely pretend not to notice him attempting to suss out her weak points. “Might we delay that? Lady Edelgard has need of me.”

Byleth thought about the request for a moment before saying, “Does after dinner work for you? I’m busy most of the rest of the day.”

“It will suffice,” Hubert replied, and turned to take his leave, more than content to walk away from the harsh look Sylvain was giving him for his interruption; he personally thought he was doing him a favour, giving him a chance to escape and avoid embarrassing himself further, but alas.

It was only as he was walking away that he heard Sylvain say, “Man, Professor, you really know how to hurt a guy’s feelings, huh? Planning a date with another guy right in front of me? Harsh…”

He had quashed the bile rising up in him and left too fast to hear what his teacher had to say about that.

The third time it had happened had been almost enough to push him over the edge, and it had started as it had begun; with Dorothea hoisting herself up onto his desk (this time in the classroom) and kicking her feet.

“So,” she said, a strange lilt to her voice as she tilted her head towards him. “Seems like I’m not the only one coming up with… What did you say? Ah, yes,  _ complete fabrications _ .”

Against his own better judgement he’d been planning to ignore her— not out of any masochistic desire to have her pester him more, of course, but because he was in the middle of copying notes for Lady Edelgard, who had been called away for important business in the middle of the lecture— until he heard that.

“It’s been you going about giving everyone these silly ideas, hasn’t it?” he said coolly, levelling his best glare at her. She remained decidedly unaffected.

“Who, me? Nonsense, Hubie, what kind of girl do you take me for?” She smiled at him, but it dropped into a more serious but still amused expression. “Seriously, though, it wasn’t me. I promise. A more likely culprit would be Sylvain’s loud mouth in the middle of the dining hall, and the fact that it really doesn’t take any more than standing within five feet of a person for people to start making up baseless rumours. Believe me, I know.”

She looked… Almost sympathetic, for a moment, frowning with furrowed brows, before going back to her previous expression.

“Not that I’ve changed my opinion, mind. In fact, I’m more convinced than ever, after hearing what everyone’s been saying about you. Even if I know people are just making things up whole cloth.”

Hubert wanted to point out how contradictory that was, and how she wasn’t making any sense at all, but all he could think about was the fact that Dorothea had been  _ right _ … About  _ one _ thing, at least. This clearly wasn’t just the fabrication of a young woman who had performed too many operas and had too much time on her hands; somehow, to everyone around him, his perfectly normal actions (with his own hidden agenda, of course) were being completely misconstrued.

It took quite a lot of thinking after that to figure out what to do. Such a rumour was unbecoming, but Dorothea was right about another thing; Hubert had never cared much about what people thought of him, so long as it didn’t reflect poorly on Lady Edelgard. He was irritated by the pointlessness and stupidity of it, of course, but was that worth changing his methods simply so the other students would be less annoying?

There was a reason for everything he did, after all. Why he played the role of Professor Byleth’s shadow, watching her closely and with intent. Why he spent long hours talking to her about nothing of importance.

It wasn’t  _ infatuation _ ; it was simply good espionage.

And so he came to the hard-fought conclusion; better to let them gossip and irritate him than take any risk of losing what ground he had already gained.

Perhaps he could even use it to his advantage. After all…

Anything for Lady Edelgard.


End file.
